The present invention relates to the field of information management, and more specifically, to providing an information resource where the content is organized using a social graph.
In business, there is an adage: “the right ten minutes in front of the right person is worth more than a year at your desk.” This is because it is people that make things happen, and connecting with the right person can give you the resources, access or credibility you may need to advance your business. So it is important for a business person to remain updated on news and other events, that can help them gain the credibility or access they need with others.
Some social networks include Facebook™ and LinkedIn™. Trademarks indicated in this patent application are the property of their respective owners. If the world is a pyramid of people, with the “most important” being at the top, Facebook is the masses at the bottom and LinkedIn is the middle-level managers in the middle. However, there is no social network that caters to the world's most “influential people.” These people try to keep a low profile, do not promote themselves, and generally do not want the general public contacting through electronic means. This means that, even if these people have a profile on these sites, they will not spend time completing their profile in great detail and will not update their profiles with new information.
On-line services, libraries, and information resources are available to assist users to research people (often important and influential) that they want to make a connection to. The information is, however, typically presented in a flat format. Users may be able to setup alerts based on keywords (e.g., a news article alert), but these alerts do not show connections between a targeted individual and other people, and how the targeted individual might be connected to the user.
Therefore, there is a need to provide an information resource where information is also organized according to a social graph or social network, which allows users to automatically track selected people, especially influential people.